A lot of businesses confuse a logo with a brand. The logo is a symbol. The brand is everything else: the colours, the tone of voice, the values your business communicates, and the feeling people have when they interact with you online.
Strong brand identity is what makes a business stick in someone's memory. It's what turns a one-time buyer into a repeat customer, and a happy customer into someone who recommends you without being asked.
Start with two questions
Before touching a design tool or updating a webpage, answer these clearly: what does your business stand for — not what you sell, but why you do it and what you believe about doing it well? And who is your ideal customer, specifically?
A brand that tries to appeal to everyone ends up appealing to no one. The businesses with the strongest identities are built around a clearly defined audience and a clear point of view. Vagueness is the enemy here.
Visual identity: beyond the logo
Your visual identity is the consistent set of elements that represent your brand across every touchpoint: your website, social profiles, email headers, and any printed materials.
The core elements are a logo that works cleanly at any size, a colour palette of two to four colours used consistently (blue signals trust, green signals growth, orange signals energy), one or two font families applied throughout, and a consistent photographic or illustration style. Individual image quality matters less than a consistent style applied everywhere.
Consistency matters more than any single element. A business using three different logos, five fonts, and a different colour scheme on every platform looks disorganised, and disorganisation destroys trust quietly and quickly.
Tone of voice: how your brand sounds
Your brand's voice is how it communicates in writing: on your website, in social posts, in emails, in customer service. It should be consistent and recognisable.
To define yours, think of three or four adjectives that describe how you want to come across. Professional but approachable? Direct and honest? Warm and informal? Write those down and use them as a filter for everything you publish.
For most local businesses in Hull and East Yorkshire, a plain-speaking, approachable tone outperforms corporate language every time. People buy from people.
Your website is your brand in action
Every other marketing channel — social posts, email campaigns, ads, PR — eventually sends people to your website. If the experience there doesn't match what brought them, you lose the customer at the last step.
Your website should reflect your visual identity precisely, communicate your values without having to state them explicitly, and make the next step — a call, an enquiry, a purchase — as straightforward as possible.
Social profiles: keep them consistent
Each platform you're active on is a brand touchpoint. Profile photo, banner image, bio, and username should match across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and anywhere else you're present. Someone who finds you on Instagram and then visits your website should feel like they've arrived at the same place.
Brand builds slowly
Brand identity doesn't happen in a week. It builds up over months and years of consistent, quality output. Businesses with a strong brand identity attract better clients, can charge more, and generate more referrals. It's one of the better long-term investments available to a small business.
If you're ready to work on yours, eHull helps businesses across Hull and East Yorkshire build identities that stand out online. Explore our brand design and strategy service.